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9.35 pm
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett (Denton and Reddish): In a sense, the hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) gave the message away. It was apparent that she was keen to enter the Chamber to speak, but not to listen. That is one of the fundamental problems in this place. Too many hon. Members want to make their speeches but not to listen to others. If that is all that we want to do, why do we not all line up and make our speeches simultaneously? It is crucial that we listen to other hon. Members' speeches. It was a privilege to be in the Chamber to listen to my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey). She made an excellent speech and I look forward to hearing her on many more occasions.
I wish that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House had started her speech by placing rather more emphasis on good scrutiny of legislation. There are some who suspect that the Government want to get their business through more quickly than has happened hitherto. If we are to have better scrutiny, it must be accepted that that will make life harder for Ministers, and especially hard for Government Whips. The long-term gain will be evident a considerable time later when we are seen to put better legislation on the statute book and conduct better government.
I press it upon my right hon. Friend that, when we change our formal procedures, we must also consider the informal. No doubt most people will judge the changes to
Prime Minister's Question Time by what happens in the Chamber. I suggest that we should consider also what happens outside. Does the change to Prime Minister's questions means that fewer Ministers will come to the House on Tuesdays and Thursdays so that they might be lobbied by their colleagues and others? Let us balance the formal by considering also the informal.
I shall present briefly a shopping list of the things that I would like at least to be considered. First, there are constitutional matters. It is a bit of a cheek for the Opposition to get hot and bothered about constitutional matters being taken on the Floor of the House after they, while in government, pushed through the poll tax, which in many ways denied many people their right to vote. That legislation was, of course, considered in Committee.
If the Opposition want constitutional matters to be considered on the Floor of the House, it would be sensible to consider sitting on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. The Wednesday experiment has proved that that can be done. The argument against Wednesday sittings was that we might have votes, which would make life difficult for Ministers and for part-time Members. Probably even the Conservative party cannot afford now to have part-timers. I think that almost all my right hon. and hon. Friends gave a clear commitment during the election campaign that they would be full-time Members.
We can make use of the mornings and I think that we can have Divisions during those sittings. My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) said that one concession reached in establishing Wednesday morning sittings was that Back-Bench Members would not move motions. I think that that right should be restored at the earliest opportunity so that we can have the ensuing debates on a Wednesday morning or at some other time.
It is important that there is interchange during debates on the Floor of the House. If there is to be an interchange, there must be interventions. I approve of the 10-minute rule, which is designed to reduce the length of speeches, but I plead with you, Madam Speaker, to consider whether we can have injury time for interventions. That allowance was recommended by the Procedure Committee. It would bring back the idea of debate and make it clear that we do not just sit in our places doing nothing but can be involved in interruptions that are of some use.
It is important that we establish some ad hoc Select Committees. I plead for some regional Select Committees. We shall be giving new powers to regional Assemblies in Scotland and Wales, and surely the English regions have rights as well. The establishment of Select Committees to reflect the English regions would be extremely useful.
I hope that there will be many more opportunities to scrutinise proposed legislation. It is important that a Select Committee should be able to examine a Bill before its parliamentary passage begins. Consideration on Report has become a farce. There is a mixture of major issues and detailed Government amendments. Those amendments should be considered on recommittal.
Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire):
Owing to your good offices, Madam Speaker, and that of the Leader of the House and of my right hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Mr. Goodlad), it has been decided that there will not be winding-up speeches from Front Benchers--rather, that two Back Benchers will have the opportunity to say a few words. I hope that that is a happy precedent.
I add my tributes to those already paid to the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey), who made a most eloquent and interesting contribution. I could not pretend to agree with everything that she said, and I would just urge a little caution in wanting to change too much too quickly, but by the same token it is helpful for those of us who have been here a long time to hear the perceptive comments of a highly intelligent newcomer who has obviously taken a lot of trouble to try to size the place up. I am sure that we will hear much more from her. It would be admirable if she, or one or two newer Members, had the opportunity to participate in the Committee that the House will shortly set up.
The Leader of the House is, perhaps, braver than she realises, because at the heart of the debate is the classic dichotomy: we do not have a separation of powers. Many of the Parliaments to which my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr. Jackson) referred in his interesting speech have a separation of powers, where the Executive is not drawn from the legislature. I know that there are some that do not--
Mr. Jackson:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, but that simply is not the case. He is thinking of the United States, but the Federal Republic of Germany, a number of continental countries and Commonwealth countries have systems very similar to ours, and their Parliaments operate more effectively, I believe, because they are committee-based, in the way that I suggested.
Sir Patrick Cormack:
Yes, indeed. There are some Parliaments like ours, but equally there are a number that have a separation of powers. It is not just the United States where that exists.
When I talk about the essential dichotomy, I mean that the right hon. Lady, in her capacity as a leading Member of the Government, is understandably anxious to get Government business through--she is anxious that there should be many Bills, to which Labour referred in its election manifesto and to which it feels morally committed--but to get business through and to have it properly scrutinised, which is the keynote in this debate, is a problem.
The right hon. Lady has the luxury of an enormous majority. Many hon. Members who have come into the House for the first time will not have the opportunity in the lifetime of this Parliament to have Government office, or even properly to aspire to it. We should remember that being in the House is itself sufficient of a challenge and reward. It is a great pity to come into the House with a mental picture of a chauffeur-driven Montego, a Dispatch Box, or whatever.
For us to be here, to take part in the debates, to scrutinise and to subject the Government to detailed examination is in itself a great task. That is why our constituents have sent us here. We should seek so to change our procedures that it is easier properly to scrutinise the legislation that the Government produce. That is the object of Parliament. Parliament does not govern; it scrutinises legislation.
I warmly welcome everything that the right hon. Lady said about Special Standing Committees and the opportunity to see draft legislation. In an earlier intervention, when she was gracious enough to give way, I referred to my experience as a Chairman of Committees. I have had the honour of chairing many Standing Committees. It is a fascinating task and one that I greatly enjoy, but I am bound to say that I frequently sit in the Chair and feel very frustrated indeed. As was rightly said, the Chairman can play no part in the deliberations. He just sits there and is all too conscious that, time after time, almost no Government Back Bencher gets up and says anything at all.
That is not a criticism of my party, so recently in government. I was here in 1970. I sat on Committees when my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath)--the Father of the House--Lord Wilson and Lord Callaghan were Prime Ministers, and it was always the same. The Government were so anxious to get their legislation through that the Whips told the Government Back Benchers on Committees that their job was to keep their heads down. Only occasionally is there a Committee where that is not the norm.
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